take care of my baby (i don't think she can do it herself)
by Haligh Haligh
Summary: As she stands there vulnerable in front of him, begging him to give her a reason they should be together, the last thing April expects to hear is the one reason why they shouldn't. "I can't."


_everything moves save for me everything will move _

_i just don't know how to know _

_but somebody will make me fall somebody will try _

_then I will just go and go_

* * *

As she stands there vulnerable in front of him, begging him to give her a reason they should be together, the last thing April expects to hear is the one reason why they shouldn't.

_"I can't."_

Two simple words, but it's a reason, and if she's truthful that's all she asked for, she was just naive enough to think he'd give her the right one.

When she was a girl she'd always thought that love was a sudden, all consuming emotion; the way it's portrayed in the movies. Strong armed men sweeping blushing women off their feet and carrying them off to a happily ever after.

At twenty nine years old she learns that it's a crushing, aching pain that has her scrambling back out the door with her head hanging low and her heart on the floor while he watches her go with his eyes closed.

* * *

She breaks up with Matthew a week later.

It's not planned, and theres no great revelation or defining moment. She simply looks at him over dinner one night and realises that this isn't the future that she wants. How can she allow herself to love someone else, when she isn't even sure that there is anything left to give?

Maybe in another life, another time, but not now. Too much has happened.

She apologizes, and he begs, takes her hand in his and tell's her that he rushed the proposal, that they can go back, continue as they were. That _he needs her_, and _loves her_, and he'll _never hurt her_.

Matthew was good for her, and she was everything to him, but somewhere in between the spaces never seemed to fit.

It's not until he tells her that they're _meant to be together_ that April lets the tears fall.

Her parents don't understand. Her mother cries, and her father expresses his disappointment, _sweetheart are you sure you know what you're doing?_ and in the end she ends the call with a brief apology washed down with another sip of beer and concentrates on the sting of alcohol rather than the sting of regret.

When she closes her eyes she's plagued by visions of smoke and fire, and a loneliness so vast that it has stayed, even after everything else has been taken away.

She thinks of the way she had called out his name over and over again as the bus had exploded. The way she'd yelled and screamed even as Matthew had tried to comfort her. She thinks of the way she had been unable to breathe until the second she had seen him walking towards them from the blast.

She doesn't sleep after that.

* * *

It takes the hospital less than a week to get back on it's feet after the storm.

The internal and external damages are all repaired, and the patients slowly start to return, and after six days she begins to forget there was even a storm in the first place.

Except that she can't forget. Not really.

She sees the reminders in the team of doctors that are a constant presence outside Dr Webber's room as his body fights to overcome the trauma he's suffered, the way that Callie and Arizona refuse to be in the same room together without one of them crying or screaming, or the way that Jackson's eyes follow her through the hospital, a steely mix of emotions she can no longer understand.

When she's forced to scrub in on a surgery with him there are no raised voices or overly polite conversations, no words at all, just blank stares over the open body of the patient on the table between them. The invisible chasm that continues to stretch between them with every empty silence and tight lines that don't even pretend to be smiles anymore.

Later, when she's alone in the empty sanctuary of her bedroom, there are no tears, just an endless chain of memories that continue to play on a loop in her mind and the releasing of feelings she's otherwise kept to herself.

She spends the following week locked in her apartment. Hunt signs her leave request for the remainder of the month, and April know's he thinks it's because of her broken engagement. She doesn't bother to correct him. The whispers follow her as she walks through the halls on her way out, the way the nurses and interns eyes flick down to the empty space on her hand where the platinum band no longer resides.

She's exhausted. Physically and emotionally. Most nights April doesn't even have the energy to make it to her bedroom so she sleeps on the couch with the lights off and re-runs of Seinfeld playing. Her hair becomes greasier and her appetite smaller, until eventually she refuses to move all together.

When she does, only out of necessity the weight crushing down on her is almost too much to bear, like her body has purged itself of all the white and red blood cells and filled her veins with lead instead.

After her sixth bottle of beer she stands on shaky legs that carry her towards the bathroom and when she collapses over the porcelain toilet April wonders which regret she's sick over this time.

When she makes it back down to the couch her discarded phone lights up with a new voice message, and she listens with trembling fingers to the messages on the end of the line. There's one from Meredith demanding that she call her back, one from Alex asking if she wants to go to Joe's, and one from a blocked number.

She know's it's him, doesn't need to see the caller ID. He doesn't speak, just breathe's in and out, and April can almost picture him clutching his phone to his ear, teeth worrying his bottom lip as he debates whether or not to speak.

She replays the message fifteen times before throwing the phone across the room.

* * *

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday night passes and she memorises the patterns on her ceiling and the shadows inside her apartment.

It's on the fifth day alone that she allows everything to really sink in.

She's alone now. She doesn't have anyone. Her best friends are dead, her relationship's over, and the man she's finally let herself admit she's in love with doesn't want anything to do with her.

It seems fitting that the only person who has ever made her feel as if she's anything is the same one who's made it clear he doesn't feel anything for her.

When Reed had died, the future seemed impossibly hopeless. In between the survivors guilt and the overwhelming grief April had wondered if it was even possible to move forward. Jackson had taken her hand in his the first night they had moved in to Meredith's and told her that _'We need to keep on living, April. For them.'_

Now, she can barely think of anything but the present, because her mind still refuses to imagine a future without him in it.

Her entire life April's always been sure of what needed to be done to accomplish her own goals, everything planned down to the last meticulous detail in order to achieve everything she ever wanted.

Now. Now - she has nothing.

* * *

Before pregnancy scares and weddings and interns had happened, they'd had a routine.

She's wake up every morning to an arm draped loosely around her waist, fingers brushing across her stomach.

After spending ten minutes basking in the warmth of her own happiness, she'd sneak downstairs and start the coffee, and Jackson would doze in bed until she crawled back in and force him to get up for work.

Sometimes they'd shower together, if they had time to spare or no one else was at home, because when Jackson kissed her under the steady stream of water, falling like rain all around them, April would always melts into him, could never resist sliding her hands over his body until they lost track of time completely.

After work they'd stumble through the door of her apartment, debating over pizza or chinese, and he'd kiss the top of her head before turning on the television which they may or may not actually watch, depending on if they'd already slept together earlier that day.

Nobody knew, and no matter how many times they said it was the last time, it was still special.

It was the same every day, until one day it wasn't.

* * *

She keeps drinking, drowning her feelings until even her sobs hurt, racking through her body until her throat and ribs ache and the crying exhausts her enough for her to stumble to the bedroom, hands reaching into the nightstand for the bottle of tylenol she keeps there. The bottle's empty, but her hands brush against a piece of paper and the aching in her body begins all over again.

April's not sure why she even kept it. Just know's that it's there, folded and creased and locked away in the drawer where no one else will find it.

Her fingers trace along the piece of paper, touching the writing on the inside, hovering over the words which have become faded over the past few months.

_Negative. Not pregnant._

She feels the traitorous sting of tears before they start, there's no use in trying to resist them as they slide down her cheeks anyway. She doesn't bother to wipe them away, and when April falls asleep on the bed that night she dreams of a small child with dark hair and pretty green eyes that will never be more than a wistful dream.

* * *

By the second week the phone calls start to come in more frequently.

Meredith, Callie, even Christina call to check up on her. Her hands hover over the buttons on the screen as the phone continues to ring day after day, but in the end she always ignores them.

Everyone's moving forward and she's trapped in the past.

It's at times like these when April feels herself gripped by some sort of paralyzing fear, the kind that takes hold of the tightening in her chest, until she's unable to breathe, as it continues to twist too tight, too tight.

Over the faint sounds of the television and the clink of empty bottles on the coffee table she vaguely registers the click of a key in the lock on the apartment door, the scuffing sound it makes against the carpet as it swings open.

She doesn't move from her position on her couch, arms wrapped tightly around her knees until she see's the peds surgeon she'd almost lost her virginity to in a hospital on call room kneel down in front of her.

_"Jesus, April." _He says softly, looking down at her. Part of her is surprised that he's here checking up on her, but another part of her know's as much as they've fought and bickered he's always looked at her like a little sister.  
She remembers a night after Lexie's funeral, they had been drinking after every one else had gone to bed, when he had opened up to her about _all of the _  
_crazy chicks in his life. _She know's he has experience taking care of people, but April's still sorry that she has to put him through it again.

"_Please."_ she says, in her smallest voice. It's the only word that comes, choking off the rest of please _go away_, please _don't ask me anything_, or maybe _please figure it out_, please _help me_.

April's not really sure what she expects him to do, knows how she must look, but he simply lifts her up in his arms like a lifeless doll and carries her into the bathroom, setting her down gently on the closed toilet seat as he turns on the shower.

She doesn't feel anything as she allows him to undress her, lifting her small frame into the shower, underneath the hot spray. In another time, she'd never let another man see her unclothed, but she's not a naive little girl anymore. She's changed. Jackson changed her.

He's this force that dismantled her completely, ran straight through her and by the time April noticed it happening, it's already too late. He's a foreign entity infecting her body that's trapped inside her bloodstream, and by the time the infection sets in there's nothing left but the gaping hole in her chest and the aching reminders of all the mistakes she's made and promises she's broken.

She never gave them a chance, not really. Mostly because she was scared, and mainly because she refused to believe it. He was perfect for her, but she didn't want to admit it.

So she stays that way, huddled under the spray with her knees drawn to her chest until her skin begins to burn and her body shivers at the sensation of hot against cold.

It feels good to feel something when she's spent so long feeling nothing.

Alex seems to know she's had enough, and reaches in to turn the shower off, wrapping a towel around her body as he leads her into her bedroom. He doesn't say anything as he dresses her in fresh clothes, just kisses the top of her head and whispers _'I'm so sorry, April.'_ She lays down on the bed and closes her eyes, and prays for a dream that doesn't involve smoke or fire.

When she wakes again, she's alone in the room, but the rumbling of life and activity behind the bedroom door are enough for her to know that Alex is still there.

By the time she leaves the bedroom he's in the kitchen heating up soup, and he takes the seat across from her at the table while she stares down at the bowl in front of her.

_"You want me to kick his ass?"_ Alex ask's, and the way he says it makes her think he's talking about Jackson more than Matthew.

Her voice startles her when she laughs, and she suddenly realizes how little she's spoken lately.

Alex holds her hand and she tries to smile but it feels like a grimace and the invisible hold on her throat gets tighter, until it's almost too hard to breathe.

He stays with her that night, watching movies on the couch and keeping her mind occupied with surgeries and patient's she's missed out on. He only leaves to go and pick up another six pack of beer, but when he returns an hour later and hands her another bottle she notices the flesh over his knuckles is torn, scraped raw, covered in jagged streaks of blood, and she doesn't mention it, just uses a damp cloth to wipe the blood away.

_"I don't know what's wrong with me."_ She tells him, as her voice trembles.

_"You're gonna be okay, sweetheart. I promise you."_ Alex assures her, putting his arm around her and letting her head rest on his shoulder.

* * *

It take's another before Jackson comes to her, and it's enough for the mental picture she keeps in her mind of him to begin to blur. She doesn't remember every detail like she used to, the sharp angles of his cheekbones and the freckles along the bridge of his nose, the exact shade of his blue-green eyes, and the way his short hair felt beneath her nails.

The angry pounding on her door that refuses to stop is what eventually gets her off the couch and when she swings it open he's there, head down and eyes dark. She's so speechless that all she can do is open the door wider as he moves past her into the apartment.

She's always been able to lean on him through everything they've been dealing with the last few years, and she's pushed him away before and he's pushed her back in return but this time everything feels different. The space between them has become so twisted and divided that April's not sure that they'll ever be able to find their way back.

Even now, as she looks at him in the dim light of her apartment all she can see is the weeks after their break up were the nights when she pretended to feel a warmth on side of the bed he slept in, and the celtics jersey wrapped around herself for days on end clinging to the idea that he'd come back to her.

It has started out as friendship, mutual bonding over the loss of shared friends before it had bloomed into something more. Friends, lovers, it doesn't feel like enough, and she wishes deep down there was another category, something to define them with. But maybe they don't have words for things like this - maybe it takes more than just simple syllables to describe a connection that was once so strong.

Her eyes are drawn to the dark bruise along his cheekbone, and if April was a betting girl, she'd put her money on Alex having given it to him.

When he speaks his voice is low, gritty, as if he's poured everything he's been refusing to say into it and it drains him to do so.

_"You started this."_ Jackson says suddenly, and April flicks her eyes up from where they've been staring at her feet for the last few minutes.

She can see all of the hurt, the accusation, the pain in Jackson's eyes.

He sits down beside her on the couch, and puts his head in his hands, and she waits for him to speak. Know's that he needs to get it out.

_"You started this when you kissed me, and then you kept pulling me, and I let you. I let you pull and pull until there was nothing left but you, and then you left me. You started dating the paramedic, and then you got engaged April. You got engaged." _He says, his voice breaking.

_"and I hated it. I hated you. For doing this to me, and so I tried to move on, I tried with Stephanie. Tried to feel something for her, and then you came back again and pulled me back in."_

_"Jackson."_ She breathes, not knowing what else to say. It's true, all of it. April knows she's the one that's done this to them, that she's run every time she was scared.

She sits there with her head pressed against his shoulder and she doesn't think he even realizes that he's holding her but he is. The same way he always has.

She sighs as she relaxes into his embrace, molding herself against his familiar body. He's in her bones, ingrained in her like muscle memory.

She takes in another deep breath, her chest aching with the effort, and wills him to look at her. Almost bewildered, his eyes meet hers, and he seems to have snapped out of it. He reaches out with one hand, cupping her tear-stained cheek and wiping a few stray tears away with his thumb. He leans in until their foreheads touch, and she can feel his breath on her lips, so close that she shudders.

_"I can't."_ He exhales, shutting his eyes.

She's crying now, unable to stop and she's covering her face with her hands, sobbing openly, not caring what she looks like or how she sounds.

He's off the couch in one movement, his hands in his hair, pacing the length of her living room.  
She watches, turning her body towards him, her knees tucked up to her chest.

_"I can't do this anymore."_ Jackson breathes. He shakes his head as creases form between his eyebrows.  
_"Give me a reason why I should."_

She shakes her head a little and opens her mouth to say something but her throat is too thick with tears and for a moment, they just stay there, crying.

Then he's walking away and all she can hear is the way he throws her own words back at her and the swift bang of the apartment door as it slams shut.

* * *

He's halfway down the street before her legs allow her to stand and she's bursting through the front door, bare feet hitting the pavement. The sky's still dark and the rain pours down covering everything around them. He stills when she screams his name, his shoulders hunching over, and she has to yell to be heard over the rain.

_"I love you. I'm in love with you."_

There are phrases and silent moments and years worth of the unsaid remaining in her gut and she can't stop here because she doesn't know if she'll ever have the strength to empty them all out again.

_"I can't go back to a life without you Jackson, I can't. So if you don't love you need to tell me, because I can't keep wondering. I won't survive. You're it for me. You're it."_ She yells, as the rain plasters her hair to her forehead .  
_  
"It's you, and it's always been you. And it's probably always going to be you-" _The rain falls heavier now, and she can barely make out his figure in front of her, but then he's moving for her before she's finished speaking, bringing his hands up to her face and kissing her roughly

She's caught off guard but only for a moment before she's kissing him back, grabbing for him and making them both stumble a couple of steps as he moves his hand for her face and then down her body, trying to reach and pull her closer anyway that he can.

_"April." _He breathes into her hair and she's crying and he's breathing and holding her, so tightly, so steady that she forgets for a moment everything it has taken them to get here. _"God, I love you."_

_"I love you, I love you, I love you."_ She says, even as he carries her smaller body back upstairs into the apartment.  
She tells him again as he pulls of their wet clothes, and she continues to say it as she's laying back on her bed, his body covering hers.

There's conversations, and demons that they need to discuss but for this moment, it's enough.

Their problems will still be their problems tomorrow and the day after that, but right now it's enough.


End file.
